·To develop a school wide reflective teaching practice that incorporates multiple intelligences and thinking skills . This will provide the children of Waituna West School the opportunity to develop a wide range of thinking strategies that they are able to apply to problem solving. ·To have……”Young people who will be confident, connected, actively involved, lifelong learners” (Ministry of Education, 2007 p.7 The New Zealand Curriculum)
Rationale
-Multiple Intelligences and thinking skills are essential because-
·Students must be prepared for jobs and technologies that don’t yet exist… in order to solve problems that we don’t even know are problems yet. ·“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking that we used when we created them”. (Albert Einstein) ·The new curriculum and its key competencies, requires students to know how to learn.
To meet these aims and rationaleWaituna West School has become part of an Extending High Standards Across School (EHSAS) cluster.
·The Wykehamist cluster has been formed by a group of schools from Palmerston North and the Kapiti Coast (Winchester, Longburn, Kairanga, Kenakena and Waituna West). These schools will be jointly involved in a professional development programme for teachers to develop a high level of understanding of pedagogy (multiple intelligences and thinking skills), to use this skilfully in teaching and to assist children in incorporating these skills in their daily work across the curriculum. ·This foundation will be used to build a platform on which to develop the principles of a rich task curriculum to enable teachers to implement trans-disciplinary units of social studies, science and technology. This will result in children producing an explicit quality project, product or performance that clearly displays their deep knowledge, deep understanding, academic engagement and higher order thinking.
Waituna West School
Ecology of Learning Philosophy.
Aim
· To develop a school wide reflective teaching practice that incorporates multiple intelligences and thinking skills . This will provide the children of Waituna West School the opportunity to develop a wide range of thinking strategies that they are able to apply to problem solving.
· To have……”Young people who will be confident, connected, actively involved, lifelong learners” (Ministry of Education, 2007 p.7 The New Zealand Curriculum)
Rationale
-Multiple Intelligences and thinking skills are essential because-
· Students must be prepared for jobs and technologies that don’t yet exist… in order to solve problems that we don’t even know are problems yet.
· “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking that we used when we created them”. (Albert Einstein)
· The new curriculum and its key competencies, requires students to know how to learn.
To meet these aims and rationale Waituna West School has become part of an Extending High Standards Across School (EHSAS) cluster.
· The Wykehamist cluster has been formed by a group of schools from Palmerston North and the Kapiti Coast (Winchester, Longburn, Kairanga, Kenakena and Waituna West). These schools will be jointly involved in a professional development programme for teachers to develop a high level of understanding of pedagogy (multiple intelligences and thinking skills), to use this skilfully in teaching and to assist children in incorporating these skills in their daily work across the curriculum.
· This foundation will be used to build a platform on which to develop the principles of a rich task curriculum to enable teachers to implement trans-disciplinary units of social studies, science and technology. This will result in children producing an explicit quality project, product or performance that clearly displays their deep knowledge, deep understanding, academic engagement and higher order thinking.